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Thursday, July 05, 2012

I find myself annoyed at redistricting...

...because I relished voting against Andre Carson, even if only as a sort of fruitless performance art, like few other things in the futile farce that is modern American politics. Hell, the opportunity to vote against Andre Carson is almost single-handedly what got me voting again after a long sabbatical. I scratched that #2 pencil in the little circle with rage that burns like the hearts of a billion suns at the blatant nepotism that parked this practically uniquely unqualified boob in the chair vacated by his career machine politician grandma once things got a little too Weekend At Bernie's on the House floor.

This genial ex-liquor cop's head is emptier than than a vegan restaurant at a cattleman's convention but because he had the right pedigree his gradually widening backside is parked in a chair on the House Committee on Financial Services, which is like... comparisons fail me... which is like putting me in charge of the Large Hadron Collider ("Hell, Doc, just turn up the juice and see what shakes loose.")

Madrassas as inspirational sources of, and I quote, "innovation and ingenuity"? Seriously, what innovation or ingenuity has come out of a Madrassa except innovative ways of packing more nails into your semtex jock strap for an ingenious fragmentation effect? (...and don't say "algebra", because what have you done for me lately?).

22 comments:

Anonymous
said...

There're some questions about that whole "algebra" thing, anyway. A lot of the arts and science that Islam takes credit for, or is given, seems to involve converts. As in, people who thought that their heads looked just fine where they were, so sign me up for the mosque.

It is generally accepted among anthropologists that Islam got Arabic numbers and algebra from India, filed the serials off and passed them off as their own. I'm not aware of any major contribution to science from Islamic culture.

Even there, the best of the Arabs, educated in the Greek and Roman mold, didn't do much but tweak a Greek invention, and all their reduction was numerical. In plain Anglo-Saxon, they did a few hours of arithmatic for each calculation, cutting and fitting until the numbers matched.

Rene Descartes singlehandedly invented analytic geometry,gave us notation, and was the first to change an arcane art to a quick means of finding things by introducing scientific method.

The man who boiled it all down and gave us what we use today to figure out where to drill the hole or how to put a man on the moon was George Peacock, a Pommie and Cambridge man.

Lots of dilletants have dabbled with it over the millenia, but it took modern European objectivity to seperate the squabbling children, sort the wheat from the chaff, and produce the elegant system we have now.

If that makes me a bigot, so's yer mudder. The sad thing is, the best of these "European" thinkers are increasingly found in Korea, Japan, and parts of China, while the Europeans watch television and tweet each other.

I've voted against some real gems in my day. My first couple of elections I got to vote against Ted Kennedy. Then I moved to CA and voted against Barbara Boxer in her first Senate run. Actually saw her speak once, she has a special kind of dazzling stupid that draws people in who can't connect dots.

Then I moved to NJ. Turns out that my instinct to move as far from population centers as possible put me in a hardcore Republican district. While my Congressman (Scott Garrett) is a libertarian / Liberty Caucus guy, I have voted against Jim McGreevey, Jon Corzine, Bob Menendez, Frank Lautenberg, and Bob "the Torch" Torricelli. A more disgusting group of corrupt statists doesn't exist.

At least Andre can pronounce most of the words in the English language without aid. His grandmother on the other hand was almost totally incomprehensible to me.

To put butter on the sunburn, for me the clip was fronted with the Anti-Romney Bain attack about outsourcing jobs based on the WaPo article on the 21st, the one that hasn't been fact checked by the paper but they are pretty sure is right, maybe.

I bet Romney's heckling tour bus was made in America. And I bet his annoying callers are based in the US as well.

If you want to vote negatively as an art form, just move up here to Minnesnowta. In particular, try living in the center of the hive here in MInneapolis. I've been able to vote against such stellar twits as:

Good grief, the mind boggles at the number of collectivist statist idiots I've been able to vote against in this split-personality state. I just have to remember to put my back to the wind while doing it, 'cause a better example of p!$$ing into the wind you won't find anywhere.

Because the electronic voting machines have a "reset" button which allows you to cancel or change a vote before you finalize your ballot, I was able to vote for John Kerry before I voted against him. One of the highlights of my voting career.MichigammeDave

My parents got redistricted into Rep Carson district as well. I had to endure Dad's two hour tirade re the above.

Being from Illinois and pointing that out to dad didn't seem to pacify him until he finally ran out of steam.

I, on the hand, got to vote against our last two Governors (prior to their convictions)I'm to have strap on the wookie suit and pulled the lever for Alan Keyes over our current POTUS when he was merely wanting to be my senator, but I got a chance to vote against him again for POTUS.